Salvation As Pure Gift

What is salvation? For many salvation is understood as a reward we receive after a lifetime of faithfully complying with God’s stipulations. What exactly those requirements are, and what qualifies as faithfulness, often differs from one version of this approach to another. Nonetheless, many were taught a list of what had to be done in order to be saved.

Perhaps the simplest version of such a list is that belief was the only requirement. But how comforting is this short list? Belief itself is difficult, and how many would be confident they believe well?

Many of us worry about our doubts, our inconsistency and wavering at times, and are afraid we don’t believe well at all. If salvation is a reward after having done well, or well enough, then assurance of salvation is near impossible to have.

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise. Ephesians 1:13

The good news of salvation is not meant to plunge us into worry over whether we have done enough to receive it as the final reward. Paul says that we hear the good news of our salvation before we believe it. The gospel is the announcement of salvation, not of the chance to be saved if we believe or do other things correctly, but of our salvation as something fully completed by God and then given to us.

God did not provide a “way of salvation” which, when we follow it, results in eternal life. No, the gospel we hear is good news of our salvation itself.

Trusting, in other words “believing”, in this announcement does not make it any more “real” than it already is. Instead, trusting is how we welcome what is true but seems unbelievable, and subsequently we are assured of it through the Spirit of God. The Spirit’s presence affirms the good news of our salvation which we hear and then believe.

Salvation is not a potential good which becomes an actual good when we believe it, though that may be true in the limited terms of our experience and perceptual horizon. But in reality salvation is the gracious work of God which was accomplished while we were unaware, and this is what is announced to us as good news.

Assurance of salvation apart from any efforts on our part is central to understanding grace as actual grace. Otherwise, we are merely talking about a transaction between God and us, one in which we exchange belief, or a combination of belief and obedience, for salvation. However, God alone did what was necessary to save the world and then told us the good news of what he had done. This is the proclamation of the gospel that we are urged to trust.